Stalking Allen Walker
by SwingTree85
Summary: Sequel to "Stalking Lavi Bookman."  The boys have finally gotten together, but not everyone is happy about it.  Admirers of Lavi and Allen alike are determined to put an end to their relationship.  Lavi and Allen, for their part, aren't terribly concerned
1. Operation: AllenKanda Friendship

Why hello thar.

Well, here it is: the first chapter of the sequel to "Stalking Lavi Bookman"! It's just sort of a general intro that sets up some of the action, and it's kind of short, but I hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless!

Also? Writing from Lavi's perspective is amazingly fun. Don't know why I didn't do it sooner.

A quick note: My update schedule for this fic is bound to be erratic at best. Law school is Really. Freaking. Hard. You guys... You don't even know. Well, maybe some of you do, I'm not sure. Anyway! I'll try to get chapters out as fast as I can. I promise!

Now, onward!

Disclaimer: I do not own D Gray-man.

* * *

Lavi Bookman was feeling_ ridiculously_ pleased with himself.

He chuckled slightly, humming a merry little tune as he made his bed. When he was finished, the bed was less "made" as it was in a state of only slightly less disarray than it had been after he'd rolled out of it not thirty seconds earlier. Now that he really looked at it, he noticed that his comforter had somehow been flipped upside down and hung unevenly off the left side of his bed. Underneath it, there was a sizeable lump on the right side where his flat sheet sat, rolled into a tight ball—he still wasn't quite sure how he'd accomplished that. Most people would scoff at his abysmal housekeeping skills, but Lavi decided to give himself an "A" for effort. Lavi always gave himself an "A," mostly because he deserved it for being so unbelievably awesome.

His cell phone beeped, dragging him out of his satisfied self-congratulation. He walked over to his desk (tripping over _The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, 1898 to 1918 _by Sean McMeekin as he went) and picked up said device, pushing the tiny buttons with a grin when he saw who the text was from.

_Hey! I'll be back in town in about an hour (finally). Christmas with Cross was a nightmare. You busy later?_

This, of course, was the message he'd been waiting for. It was why he'd gotten up so early (on a Saturday, even!) and was currently trying to make his room—and, by extension, himself—a bit more presentable. And it was why he was feeling so_ ridiculously pleased_. He would almost say that he was giddy, except Lavi didn't use lame words like "giddy." That just reminded him of cowboys and horses and that time in the fourth grade when his grandpa forced him to take riding classes after school when everyone else got to go home and watch Power Rangers. He'd had to listen to stuffy rich kids bore him to death with stories about how well bred their horses were or whatever, while the bitchy instructor made him ride some cantankerous old pony called Bartholomew (Barty to his friends, of which Lavi was _not_) that tried to throw him every chance it got.

Moral of the story: horses are stupid. And the Green Ranger was obviously the best.

But anyway—back to the matter at hand.

Allen was coming home today.

Lavi grinned even wider as he replied with _of course not—call me when you get here _and threw his phone onto the floor; it landed with a soft _thwump_ on a sweatshirt he'd neglected to wash for about three weeks.

The redhead allowed himself a contented sigh—something that would normally never occur, but there was no one around to hear it and make fun of him so it was all good—as he raked a hand through his tousled hair. Allen had been gone for almost a month, what with Winter Break and all, and Lavi was starting to go crazy. Sure, they'd had their little Christmas/Allen's birthday celebration before the white-haired boy had gone back to spend the holidays with his godfather, but that had been so long ago. Lavi felt like he was going through some sort of Allen withdrawal.

He had a fever, and the only cure was more Allen.

Congratulating himself for that clearly hilarious mental pop-culture reference, Lavi threw open his bedroom door and bounded down the stairs. Allen's text had left him in high spirits. Obviously, he needed to share his good mood with the world.

He found Lenalee in the living room, frowning at the script she was holding at arm's length.

"Lena!" Lavi cried, jumping up behind her.

She shrieked and fell off of the couch.

"Oops," Lavi said, rubbing the back of his head.

Lenalee hauled herself back up, glaring. "What do you want, Lavi?"

"I just got a text from Allen. He should be back in about an hour!"

Lenalee's harsh look softened as she smiled up at him. "That's right; he's coming back today, isn't he? That's great! We've really missed him around here."

"Speak for yourself," Kanda grumbled, stalking into the room in his usual bad mood. "That's the worst news I've heard since I found out the he and the stupid rabbit are…" Here he paused, nose wrinkling. "Dating," he finally spat.

"Aww, what's wrong, Yu? Are you jealous?" Lavi sauntered over to the angry boy and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Did you want me all for yourself? I can see how you'd feel that way. Everybody wants a little Lavi action now and th—okay, okay, you're choking me," he gasped, twisting sharply away as Kanda smirked.

The Japanese boy removed his hands from where they'd been wrapped around the redhead's neck and shoved them into his pockets. "Quit being an idiot," he said flatly. "It's just now the damn beansprout is somehow over here even _more_ than he was before. I have to look at his stupid face _all the time_ now. It's annoying."

"But he's been gone for a whole month!" Lavi said, pouting. "His face hasn't even been around at all! Oh," Lavi whimpered, looking pitiful and forlorn. "I miss his face…"

Lenalee mustered every ounce of acting talent she possessed in order to _not laugh _as she patted the depressed redhead on the back.

"Shut up," Kanda grunted. "Quit whining. Not having his ugly face around has made this one of the best months of my life."

"Geez, Kanda, quit being an ass," Lenalee chided. He glared at her and then stomped into the kitchen and started banging around in search of his soba. "Anyway, Lavi, will you help me prepare for this?" She waved her script at him imploringly. "Auditions are the first week of second semester, and I'm having a bit of trouble with this Shakespeare stuff and—"

"I just had the best idea!" Lavi exclaimed, rounding on the girl and interrupting her plea.

"What?" she said, disgruntled.

"Allen and Yu don't get along, right?"

"Right," Lenalee said slowly, as if unsure of where this was going and annoyed that Lavi was ignoring her.

"I mean, I need my best friend and my boyfriend to get along, don't I?"

"I thought Allen was your best friend."

"He was," Lavi said, "but now he's my boyfriend. He can't be _both_."

"But why no—"

"So clearly, I have to formulate a plan to make them stop hating each other," he said, pretending she hadn't spoken. He stared at the Chinese girl with the look of fierce determination he reserved solely for discussions of his infamous adventures. "Operation: Allen/Kanda Friendship is go!" He held up a triumphant fist, inwardly marveling at his extreme genius and general amazingness. Some might argue that "amazingness" isn't even a word, but Lavi would just tell those people to shut up, because it is now.

"That'll never work," Lenalee said bluntly.

"Hey!" Lavi said, offended. "Don't underestimate my extreme genius and general amazingness! It'll be epic, I'm telling you. So much better than old William Shakespeare, at any rate. And we can always rehearse later! C'mon, whaddaya say?" He gave her a pleading look, his single green eye shining with hope.

She sighed, glancing sadly at the cover of _Twelfth Night_ before setting it aside. "I'm not going to have a choice in this, am I?"

"'Course not!" Lavi said happily. He grabbed a bright red notebook off of the bookshelf in the corner of the living room, dug around between the couch cushions until he pulled out a pen (it had a bunch of unidentifiable crumbs stuck to it, which Lavi hastily wiped off on his pant leg) and then plopped down next to her with a grin. "Let the planning stage commence!"

* * *

Exactly one hour and twelve minutes later, Lavi was once again congratulating himself on a job well done. He'd covered five notebook pages with his messy handwriting before he'd finally struck upon an idea that Lenalee didn't bitch about. Honestly, he loved her like a sister, but she could be such a pessimist sometimes. Always harping on about how his ideas were "physically impossible" or "probably illegal."

But finally, he'd mentioned something that she actually seemed excited about. After that, they'd worked everything out, down to the last detail, and drew up a plan. Hell, he even made a flowchart.

"You know what, Lavi? I think this might actually be fun!" Lenalee said, smiling up at him.

Lavi grinned his signature cocky grin. "'Course it will, Lena. Everything I come up with is fun."

She rolled her eyes and smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "Get over yourself."

"Never!"

"Do you think Kanda will actually agree to this?" Lenalee wanted to know, frowning slightly at Lavi's (sweet) flowchart.

"Uh huh," he said, leaning back against the couch. "All you have to do is tell him you'll be sad if he doesn't go along with it. You could throw in an adorable pout, even," he suggested.

"Like this?" she said, demonstrating.

Lavi laughed. "Perfect! He's too easy to manipulate, it almost isn't even fun."

"'Almost' being the key word here," Lenalee giggled.

Suddenly, the slightly muffled sound of Lavi's obnoxiously happy ringtone floated down the stairs.

The green-eyed boy leaped up, smiling so wide it actually kind of hurt. "You fill Yu in on the plan. I'll let Allen know what's up!" He snatched the notebook from Lenalee's hands and sprinted up the stairs and into his room. He spent a frantic moment searching for his phone before he found it (that sweatshirt _really_ needed to be washed, he decided) and answered with a slightly breathless "hello?"

"Lavi_?"_ Allen's bright, clear voice answered. "Are you all right? You sound like you've been running."

"I'm cool!" he insisted. "You home?"

"Yes," Allen replied. "You have no idea how glad I am to be back."

"I think maybe I have _some_ idea." He moved to the window and drew back the shade to gaze at Allen's house, only to find his boyfriend grinning at him from his own bedroom window. Lavi laughed and waved.

"Christmas with Cross was one of the worst experiences of my life. Did you know that he—? Well. I'll tell you all about it later." He smiled. "It's so good to see you," he said, raising his right hand and pressing it against the glass.

"You too," Lavi replied, copying the action_._ "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too," Allen said softly. They stood like that for a minute, just staring and smiling at each other through the glass, glad they were together again once more.

"Together" in a purely metaphorical sense, of course, because at the moment they weren't technically _together_ so much as they were in separate houses. But Lavi figured it was close enough.

"Well!" the redhead said brightly. "I think we've just met our sappiness quota for the month." He gave Allen a thumbs-up, which was accompanied by a cheeky grin.

Allen laughed, letting his hand drop. "I think you're right. Sorry about that."

"It's cool. Anyway! Now that you're back, guess what we have to do?"

"Have a party?"

"Aww, you're so smart!"

"I try. So, what's the theme this time?" He cocked his head to the side in question.

Lavi took a second to enjoy how completely _adorable_ Allen looked when he did that before he answered. "Ah, that's the thing! It's a totally different kind of party than we usually have!"

"Really?" Allen said, raising an eyebrow. "Okay, I'll admit I'm intrigued."

"As well you should be, my good man," Lavi said, nodding sagely. He held the notebook up and pressed it against the glass. "Ta da! Behold my genius!"

"I can't really see it that well from here," Allen said, squinting. "Is that a flowchart?" he added suspiciously.

"Hell yes it is," Lavi said proudly. "And dude, what are we doing still talking over the phone? Get your ass over here so I can tell you my plan."

"Oh, right," Allen said sheepishly. "I'll be right there." Lavi watched him hang up the phone and move away from the window. Lavi started to move away from his own window, but stopped short as his gaze fell onto Allen's front yard.

There, crouching in the bushes, was Chomesuke.

Lavi blinked, confused. Ever since he'd spread the word that he and Allen were dating, he figured that his crazed horde of fangirls would give up and move on to someone else—hopefully Yu, because that would be freaking hilarious. He felt a little sad about losing them until he remembered that most of them were terrifying and/or stalking him.

As he continued to watch the brown-haired girl, he realized that she was facing the wrong direction. Usually, she skulked in Allen's shrubbery with her gaze fixed on Lavi's living room window. But this time, it was _Allen's_ house she was watching, scribbling furiously on a yellow legal pad while she spoke into a camo-green walkie-talkie. Curious, he tried to open his window to hear what she was saying, but it was frozen shut. It made a horrible screeching sound as he tugged on it, but otherwise remained resolutely closed.

The noise drew Chomesuke's attention. She whirled around and looked up at him, her eyes wide. Lavi raised an eyebrow at her. She said something very fast into her walkie-talkie and then bolted across the yard and down the street. Lavi shook his head, bemused. What had she been doing? He would have found out, too, if not for the window refusing to cooperate. He glared at the thick coating of ice along the sill that had prevented him from opening it. Stupid winter, thwarting his otherwise ninja-esque stealth.

Lavi left his room and descended the stairs, meaning to tell Allen all about Chomesuke's stranger-than-normal behavior—which was really saying something—but when his boyfriend entered the house, wiping his boots on the rug and shaking snow out of his hair, Lavi was so excited to see him that all thoughts of Chomesuke immediately fled his mind.

This would eventually come back to bite him in the ass. But more on that later.

"Allen!" Lavi said blissfully, leaping forward and enveloping him in a tight hug.

"Hello, Lavi," Allen said, attempting to return the hug but finding that he was having trouble breathing. "Agh… too…tight…"

"Oh, sorry little buddy!" Lavi apologized, pulling away slightly. "I just missed you, you know?"

"Yes, you've made that abundantly clear," he replied, grinning. He leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to the taller boy's lips. "I've missed you too."

"Aww!" Lenalee cried, appearing out of nowhere and scaring both boys half to death. "You two are so cute!"

"Lenalee," Lavi wheezed, holding a hand over his racing heart. "Don't _do_ that!"

"That's payback for this morning," she said sweetly.

Lavi hung his head while Allen glanced curiously between them.

"Anyway," Lenalee said, moving forward to give Allen a 'welcome back!' hug of her own. "Have you told him about the plan?"

"Not yet," Lavi said, brightening. "But he'll love it, I bet! Did you get Kanda to agree?"

"Who do you think you're talking to?" she said slyly. "He'll be there; no problem."

"Yes!" Lavi cried, pumping a fist.

"What plan is this?" Allen demanded. "I don't know if I'll be too thrilled with it if Kanda's going to be there."

"Dude, _I_ made it, okay? You'll be thrilled, trust me."

"All right," Allen said dubiously.

Lavi led the way into the living room, throwing himself onto the couch. Allen sat next to him, peeking curiously at the notebook Lavi still held in his hand. Lenalee wrinkled her nose at Lavi's orange armchair—which was ridiculous because that thing was fan-freaking-tastic—before curling up on the loveseat.

"Okay," Lavi said dramatically, holding the notebook out to Allen like it was the Holy Grail or some equally important historical artifact of questionable existence. "So. We're going to have a scavenger hunt."

"What." Allen deadpanned.

"Come on!" Lenalee said. "It'll be great! We came up with this cool list of stuff to get, and—"

"I'm sorry, but since when are we all ten-year-olds?" Allen wanted to know.

"Dude, quit being a jerk," Lavi said amiably. Allen huffed, probably highly affronted, but Lavi ignored him. He was _incredible_ at ignoring people. "So, here's how it'll go down. We're going to have teams of four—you, me, Lena, and Yu are a team, natch—and we'll have two categories of things to find. The first category is stuff you can take a picture with. At least three teammates have to be in the picture, to prove that your whole team is together and that you're not cheating by splitting up to cover more ground and get more items on the list. The second category is stuff you have to actually physically collect and bring back at the end of the hunt. Sounds fun, right?"

"Can I see the list?" Allen asked.

"Sure thing, darlin'!" Lavi said, handing it over.

"'Darlin''?" Allen repeated, eyebrow raised. "What have I told you about nicknames?"

"What? It's not a nickname! It's a term of endearment!"

"Didn't we already have this conversation?"

"Probably," Lavi said, shrugging. "Anyway, what do you think of the list?"

"Huh," Allen said, reading it over. "This actually seems like it could be pretty fun."

"Right?" Lavi said happily.

Lenalee's phone beeped, and she grinned as she quickly read the text. "Oh! Miranda says that she, Krory, Daisya, and Daisya's friend Noise Marie want in, and they'll be a team. This'll be—" she was cut off by the sound of her phone beeping again. "Oh! Fou, you know, one of my friends from the theatre department?"

Lavi nodded, remembering her vividly. Aside from Lenalee, she was the only other girl who was ever able to resist his charm. Unlike Lenalee, however, she had a penchant for punching people. The redhead rubbed his shoulder and pouted, remembering the time she's wailed on him for some rather inappropriate comments he'd made about her stomach—namely that he liked what he could see of it from the belly shirt she'd been wearing and was wondering if she'd like to show him a little more.

In retrospect, he could see why she'd been offended by that.

He would exercise far more caution around her this time, in order to save his poor shoulder from any further abuse, as well as to prove to Allen that he wasn't _nearly_ as perverted as the white-haired boy insisted he was.

"Anyway," Lenalee said. "She and three of her friends are going to make up a team as well. Everyone should be here around 6:00 pm. Oh! This is going to be such a good time!"

"Wait, am I reading this right?" Allen said, holding the notebook out to Lavi for verification. "It says we have 24 hours to get as much of this stuff as we can."

"Yep! This is an all-day, all-night thing. So no sleeping!"

"At all?" Allen said, aghast.

"Yep! That's what makes it so fun!"

"Che. I doubt that," Kanda said, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. He spotted Allen on the couch and sneered. "Oh. It's the beansprout. I was hoping you'd died or something."

"Shut up, jerk!" Allen hissed.

"Why am I being forced to spend time with him again?" Kanda demanded.

"But…" Lenalee began, her eyes filling with tears.

Kanda looked away quickly, grimacing. "I said I'd go, didn't I?" he said through gritted teeth. "You don't have to cry about it."

She and Lavi shared a knowing smirk.

"Be nice to her!" Allen commanded. "You really are a vicious brute, you know that?"

"Like I care what you think."

Lenalee moved silently around the back of the couch to whisper in Lavi's ear. "Do you really think this is going to work?" In the background, the bickering between Allen and Kanda continued. "They _really_ can't seem to get along."

"Oh, it'll work," Lavi said confidently. "Trust me."

On the inside, however, he was starting to feel slightly less confident about the whole thing—especially since the two of them had started throwing things at each other.

But this _had_ to work, Lavi decided, ducking the ladle that came flying at his head. If it didn't work, he didn't know _what_ he'd do!

Well, okay, that was a little dramatic. What he'd probably do was just try a different plan next week.

He had a whole notebook full of them, after all.

* * *

What do you think so far? Drop me a line and let me know!


	2. Knights and Badgers

Yeah, it's me again. Finally.

This chapter was originally supposed to be a lot longer. Like, the entire scavenger hunt portion was supposed to be in chapter 2. But I have a ridiculously limited amount of time to write, so you guys would have had to wait another month for the chapter, and that is just not cool. So I finished what I have and that's what I'm putting up. As such, not much happens here, but it's kind of fun so yeah.

I want to thank everyone who reviewed the first chapter. You guys were so enthusiastic that I knew I had made the right decision to write a sequel. Thank you all so much for the overwhelmingly positive response!

Now, on to chapter 2!

* * *

The doorbell rang at 5:46 pm.

"I got it, I got it!" Lavi shouted, leaping up from the couch and bounding toward the door. This dislodged Allen, who'd been drowsing against the redhead's chest, and he tumbled to the floor with an "oof!"

"Oops," Lavi said, pausing to look at Allen and scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

The white-haired boy just sighed and picked himself up off of the floor, as if things like this happened every day. Which, now that Lavi thought about it, they kind of did.

Hmmm. Maybe he'd have to work on that.

Lavi returned his attention to the door and flung it wide, beaming at the people who stood on his front porch. "Hello, friends!" he greeted them exuberantly.

"Calm down, Bookman," Daisya Barry grunted, brushing past him.

"Hello, Lavi," Arystar Krory said politely, moving past the redhead as well. Miranda Lotto came next, giving Lavi a shaky smile before quickly averting her eyes. She made it almost all the way into the living room before she tripped on the edge of the rug and fell flat on her face.

"Oh shit," Lavi said quietly, trying desperately not to laugh at the awkward girl's misfortune.

Miranda Lotto had always been a bit of an enigma to Lavi. This was rather distressing to him, because as a genius (which he totally was) not many things truly confused him. He met her at the truly epic Halloween party he had thrown the year before—in which he'd dressed as Spider-man and proceeded to save the world from all things boring and non-sexy—and he could tell from the start that this was one girl he _probably_ shouldn't hit on.

This doesn't mean he didn't do it anyway.

The result was, predictably, a disaster. The moment Lavi had removed his Spidey mask and flashed his patented smile (okay, it wasn't _really _patented, mostly because you can't patent body parts—he'd checked) she'd proceeded to have a panic attack and collapsed, squeaking, to the kitchen floor. Lavi stood there, blinking stupidly at the quivering mass of black, as her pointed witch's hat fell from her head and fluttered to the dusty linoleum floor. Eventually, Lenalee wandered past, noticed the situation, and led Miranda to her bedroom where she spent an hour trying to calm the hyperventilating girl down.

Suffice it to say, Lavi had been extremely wary of her ever since.

"Are you all right, Miranda?" the last member of the four-person team inquired. Lavi was promptly flattened against the hall closet as the large boy pushed past him in order to help Miranda to her feet.

"Ye-yes, Marie," Miranda said shyly. "Thank you."

The boy smiled at her, and then turned back toward Lavi. "I'm sorry I smushed you," he said seriously.

"Eh, no big," Lavi said, trying to subtly massage his most-likely bruised ribs.

"Noise Marie," the boy said, holding out a hand.

"Lavi Bookman," Lavi said, shaking the proffered hand with a grin. The three of them made their way back into the living room—Marie helping Miranda stay upright, Lavi limping in a very manly and not-at-all-dramatic manner—where everyone else was crowding around the print-outs of the list of items for the hunt.

"This looks fun, Lavi," Krory offered as he continued to scrutinize his copy of the list.

"Hell yeah," Daisya said. "I love a good competition." He raised a threatening finger and pointed it in Allen's face. "You're going down, whitey."

"Wha—?" Allen began, taken aback.

Lavi started toward him, fully intending to defend his boyfriend from such vicious threats and uncalled-for face pointing, when Kanda popped out of nowhere and socked Daisya in the gut. The soccer-player doubled over, gasping.

"Kanda?" Allen said uncertainly.

"Whoa, Yu!" Lavi said, astonished. "Did you just _defend_ Allen?" Could it be that his fabulous plan was starting to work _already?_

"What?" Kanda grunted, turning to look at Allen as if just noticing he was there. "Che. No way in hell would I ever care about the beansprout."

"But…" Lavi said, frowning. He gestured toward Daisya, who was still bent over and panting.

"I hate that guy," Kanda said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Every time I see him, I feel like punching him in the stomach. So I did."

Oh.

Well then.

"Good to see you too, buddy," Daisya wheezed.

"Shut up," Kanda commanded.

Lavi almost allowed himself to feel defeated, but then he remembered that the plan hadn't even really been instigated yet. He was the Undisputed Master of Instigation (as he just now decided to start referring to himself in his mind) so once the plan got going, he figured it would all definitely work out.

Somehow.

The doorbell rang again.

"Oh, I bet that's Fou. I'll get it," Lenalee chirped, sweeping out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on her jeans. She'd been doing the dishes before everyone got there, even though the chore chart said that it was Lavi's week to do them. For some reason, Lenalee was incredibly hesitant to let Lavi anywhere near anything housework-related. Whenever Lavi was in a helpful mood—which, he'll be honest, wasn't very often—he'd try to help her clean and she'd just freak the _hell_ _out_. Once he'd picked up a broom and she'd hit the deck like he was brandishing a grenade launcher.

The green-eyed boy could hear Lenalee's excited greeting and Fou's dry response from the entryway. He tried to sneakily move behind Allen for some sort of protection, but his boyfriend was a good head shorter than him and made an all around ineffective, albeit adorable, human shield.

"Lavi?" Allen questioned, turning around and raising an eyebrow. "What are you doing lurking back there? You look rather suspicious."

"Don't worry about it," Lavi said, his eye trained nervously on the entryway.

Fou came around the corner then, trailed by people Lavi presumed to be the three friends that Lenalee had mentioned. When she caught Lavi's eye, he offered her a weak grin. She just smirked and raised a threatening fist. Lavi shrunk a little further behind Allen. This was just to stay out of her way, of course. It's not like he was _cowering_ or anything.

"Oh my gosh! Allen?" one of Fou's friends inquired, pushing her round glasses up her nose in surprise.

"Ah, Miss Lo Fa," Allen greeted her warmly. "What a coincidence!"

"Didn't know you'd be here, Walker," one of the boys who was standing behind Fou said with a smile.

"Hello, Rikei," Allen said. "Sifu," he added, nodding to the remaining boy.

"You know them?" Lavi wondered, standing up straight and peering at the group over Allen's head.

"They were my bio lab group last semester," Allen explained. "Small world, right?"

"So, what's the plan, Bookman?" Fou asked, crossing her arms. "We gonna get this thing started or what?"

"Oh, right, right!" Lavi said, hopping up. "All right, here's how this is gonna go down. Everybody have a list?" He snatched Allen's list from his hands and waved it around a bit, giving a satisfied smile when everyone nodded. "Great! So, just collect as many items as you can from the list in 24 hours. If you're not back here when time is up, you're disqualified. Also, all four members of your team must remain together at all times. No splitting up to collect more items, because that's cheating. Now, some things are worth more points than others, and I don't think there's any way you can get all of them, so you'll have to make a plan about what you're gonna get and what you're gonna ignore. Any questions?"

"What do we get when we win?" Daisya demanded, raising his hand.

"_When_ you win?" Lavi said, amused. "Pssh, in your dreams, Barry. We all know that our team is gonna kick your team's _ass_!"

"Before this gets out of hand," Marie cut in, placing a restraining hand on Daisya's shoulder as he began to make for Lavi. "I think that Daisya raises a valid point. What is the prize for winning?"

"Prize?" Lavi said, perplexed. He honestly hadn't thought that far in advance. This plan was less about having an actual scavenger hunt and more about getting Allen and Kanda to be able to exist in the same room without trying to bludgeon each other.

"It's a secret!" Lenalee cut in with a conspiratorial wink. "But I can tell you, it's a really awesome prize!"

And this was the main reason he loved Lenalee: she always knew just the right thing to say to save his ass.

"Hmm, mysterious," Krory murmured.

"Right!" Lavi said, giving the Chinese girl a grateful smile. "So, it is…"

"Six twenty-three p.m," Allen verified, checking his watch.

"Thanks dude," Lavi said, ruffling his hair. "So, the hunt officially starts now. If you're not back by six twenty-three tomorrow night, you lose. Now, go forth!" He struck an impressive pose, and everyone marveled at his genius. Allen swooned.

Or, well, Lavi thought he probably _would _have swooned, had he not been too busy rolling his eyes.

"Let's go team," Daisya said, sprinting to the front door and waving his list like a flag. "We won't lose to these losers!"

"Who are you calling losers?" Fou demanded, striding after him. "Hey, get back here, kid. I'm not done talking to you."

Krory and Miranda smiled awkwardly and followed, Marie trailing silently behind. The boy Allen had identified as Rikei gave a salute and turned to follow, his eyes lingering on Lenalee perhaps a second too long. Sifu followed as well, studying his list carefully. Lo Fa stood rooted to her spot, staring (rather dreamily, Lavi noticed) at Allen. Allen was completely oblivious to her attention in general.

This, of course, was hilarious.

"Lo Fa," Fou barked. "Get your ass over here!"

"Oh, right!" she squeaked, blushing. "Um, see you later Allen!"

"Good luck, Miss Lo Fa," Allen said sincerely, glancing up from his list with a polite smile.

"Th-thanks," she stuttered, pushing her glasses up her nose again. She hurried toward the front door, stopping once to glance at Allen over her shoulder. The white-haired boy was once again immersed in his list, so she caught Lavi's inquisitive green eye instead. He gave her an amused smirk and raised an eyebrow. She flushed an even deeper red and tripped out the door.

"All right," Lavi said, mind back on the task at hand. He pulled Allen and Lenalee into a huddle, wisely refraining from touching Kanda. The swordsman stood at the fringes of the discussion, close enough to hear but not close enough to stab people for intruding upon his personal space. "Now, we obviously need a car. Allen's is the biggest, plus it has four-wheel drive to get over all of this snow, so we'll use that."

"Does this mean I get to drive?" Allen asked hopefully.

"Of course not," Lavi said. "I'll—"

"I'll be driving," Lenalee cut in, giving Lavi a very pointed look.

"But!" Lavi and Allen protested at the same time.

"No arguing," Lenalee said. "Now, let's go!" She led the way out the door, the boys trailing behind her. They crunched across the snow-covered lawn and into Allen's garage. He dejectedly fished his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Lenalee, who took them with a smile. She climbed into the driver's seat and Lavi hopped into the passenger side.

"Um," Allen said awkwardly, looking uncertainly at Kanda. "You want us in the backseat?"

"Uh huh!" Lavi said, nodding happily.

"Kanda and I."

"Yep!"

"Together."

"Yeah…"

"In cramped quarters—"

"Just get in the car, beansprout," Kanda grated, sliding into the backseat behind Lenalee.

"It's Allen," he snapped, crawling into the seat behind Lavi. "Why is it that you can't seem to get that right?"

"It's probably because I don't give a shit _what_ your name is," Kanda growled, crossing his arms over his chest and turning to look resolutely out the window. They were still in the garage, so there really wasn't much to see—just an old sawhorse and a rusted old axe that Lavi had never seen before and made a mental note to hide so Kanda couldn't use it on them all in their sleep one night—so that was just a testament to how much the Japanese boy did _not_ want to look at Allen.

Which seemed ridiculous to Lavi. Looking at Allen was one of his favorite things ever.

Allen made an indignant noise in the back of his throat and turned his head away as well.

Lenalee gave Lavi a _look_ and buckled her seatbelt. "Sure hope you know what you're doing, Lav."

"Hey, you said this was a good idea!" Lavi defended. "You lent me your support, even!"

"This is a terrible idea," Kanda grumped.

"Quiet, jerk," Allen snapped. "Be nice to Lavi!"

Allen was defending him. _D'aww_.

"Yeah, well," Lenalee murmured, looking in the rearview mirror to see Allen and Kanda glaring daggers at each other.

"Well, okay, so here's the plan," Lavi said, trying to get things back on track. "Lena and I think that we should get the biggest thing out of the way first, so we're going to go get a picture with the giant badger."

"Um, isn't that in the next town?" Allen asked, furrowing his brow. "That's a bit of a drive…"

"Just twenty minutes there and twenty minutes back. And it's worth 2000 points!"

"All right," Allen said slowly. "So what'll we get after that?"

"Well…" Lavi began.

And now they were at the heart of his fantastic, genius plan. He knew that Allen was surprisingly competitive, had actually found this out the hard way when the white-haired boy had refused to speak to him for a full day when he'd suspected Lavi of cheating at Monopoly.

Which he totally was, by the way. There was a reason he always volunteered to be banker, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was practically a human calculator. Which, again, he totally was. But it's not like Allen really had any _right_ to complain, what with the positively fiendish way the gray-eyed boy played poker. Lavi was still sore over that whole situation.

But anyway. Allen hated to lose, and of course Kanda hated to lose. Kanda hated most things, of course, but losing would probably be in his top five. Which was actually quite impressive, given the truly extensive list of things Kanda admitted to hating.

Lavi figured that he could put Allen (who hated to lose) with Kanda (who also naturally hated to lose) together on a team in a competition with other people (to whom the two would not enjoy losing, as has been repeatedly established) and they'd be able to work together toward a common goal and, in the process, learn to get along.

It was all so touching Lavi almost shed a tear.

"Well what?" Kanda demanded.

"We haven't really planned it out any farther than that. So why don't you two look at the list and decide what we should gather to get the highest amount of points?"

Lenalee gave him an encouraging nod as she turned the key in the ignition and pressed the button for the garage door opener.

"You want us to work together?" Allen asked, horrified.

"I am _not_ working with the stupid beansprout," Kanda insisted.

"Well, Lena's driving, and I'm navigating," Lavi said, fishing a map out of Allen's glove box and spreading it across his knees. "Come on, men! Draw us up a battle plan! Don't want to lose to _Daisya Barry_ now, do we?"

Kanda and Allen looked at each other for a moment, then looked back at Lavi and shook their heads.

"I guess we can make it work," Allen said grudgingly.

"Whatever," Kanda said. "I'm only doing this because I've hated Barry longer than I've hated you."

"And this is a good thing?" Allen said, frowning.

"Che."

Lenalee pulled Allen's Jeep out into the alley and toward the road. "All right, so which way am I going, Lavi?"

"You'll want to take a right up here," Lavi pointed out. He glanced over his shoulder to see Allen and Kanda leaning over the same list, talking in low but relatively civil tones, while Kanda used a pen he'd found on the floor to circle some things and cross out others.

"Captain's Log," Lavi whispered to himself, grinning. "Six thirty-three pm. 'Operation: Friendship' has begun."

* * *

Captain's Log—6:57 pm. Commence "Operation: Locate Giant Badger."

"Who the hell makes a statue of a giant badger?" Kanda wanted to know.

"A sculptor who has a lot of problems, clearly," Allen answered. "Are you sure we're going the right way?"

"I'm sure I'm sure," Lavi insisted, skipping ahead of them. "And just so you know, Yu, badgers are some of the most vicious creatures in these parts. They've been known to go toe-to-toe with black bears and win."

"What?" Kanda scoffed. "Nothing can beat bears." He paused for a second before adding, "except maybe other bears."

"Nope, nope, it's true," Lavi assured him. "I saw it on the Discovery channel. The Discovery channel would never lie to me."

"Don't they always put on those programs about how the pyramids were built by aliens and how Leonardo Da Vinci was psychic and whatnot?" Allen put in with a frown.

"No, that's the History channel," Lavi said, grimacing. "We do not speak of the History channel."

Lenalee giggled, swinging her digital camera bag on the sparkly strap that clipped to her purse. "That's a really sore subject for him."

"That isn't real history!" Lavi shouted, waving his arms wildly and startling the elderly couple that was strolling toward them on the park's pebbly walking trail.

"We know, Lavi," Lenalee placated.

Allen chuckled and Lavi shot him a sad look. "Oh, I'm sorry," Allen said, patting him on the back. Lavi was appeased. It was relatively easy to appease Lavi, especially if your name was Allen Walker.

"Is that it?" Kanda interrupted, pointing at a granite statue of a badger rearing up on its hind legs, claws out and fangs bared. It was extremely terrifying. If Lavi had seen this as a child, he would have been scarred for life.

"Jesus," Lavi breathed.

"Didn't that program say that Jesus was an alien, too?" Allen said thoughtfully.

"We do not speak of the History channel!" Lavi yelled. "Why are you speaking of the History channel?"

"Sorry," Allen said, smiling sheepishly.

Lenalee ignored them like a pro. "What's with this fence?" she wondered, poking the top of one of the wrought-iron points that surrounded the statue. "Is this thing really so valuable that they need to guard it?"

"Maybe it's because it's so scary, they don't want people taking a crowbar to it," Lavi said, squinting. "That's what I'd do."

"You'd destroy public property with a crowbar?" Allen said, raising an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't be my first time."

"Well, come on then," Kanda said, hopping over the four-foot-tall fence in one fluid motion. "Let's get this picture and get the hell out of here. I'm getting snow in my shoes. I hate getting snow in my shoes."

Lavi clambered over next, and then hefted Allen under his armpits and swung him up and over.

"Really, Lavi," Allen groused, blushing. "I could have done that myself."

"S'kay, babe," Lavi said, grinning. "I was mostly just showing off how strong I am. Impressed?"

"Oh yes, very," Allen said drily, rolling his eyes yet again.

"Stop flirting and get your asses over here," Kanda growled, scowling. Lavi was struck by how closely he resembled the horrifying badger statue when he made that face. He almost mentioned it to him but decided that he'd rather not be mauled tonight. As ridiculously fun as it was picking on Kanda, he had to put the good of the plan before his own personal enjoyment.

And Lavi _never_ put anything before his own enjoyment. This whole plan was incredibly noble of him, he decided. Noble like a knight. Yeah, that was good. Knights were cool. They got to wear shiny armor and wave swords around and save people from dragons and stuff. If a dragon thought that it could just fly in and make off with someone—he had a brief mental image of Allen in a flowy pink dress with one of those tall cone-shaped princess hats on his head—well, that dragon had another think coming. Allen would be all "save me, Lavi!" and Lavi would be all "never fear, fair, uh, dude! I am here to rescue—"

"What the hell are you doing?" Kanda bellowed, interrupting Lavi's fantasy of his knightly badassery. "Quit just standing there and get in the damn picture."

"Are you all right, Lavi?" Allen asked, concerned. "You've been standing there staring off into space for about a minute now."

"Nothing to worry about, your highness," Lavi said, flipping him a salute. He clambered up onto the base of the statue next to the gray-eyed boy, giving the stone badger a wary glance.

"Your highness…?" Allen said, perplexed.

"All right everyone," Lenalee said, holding up her baby-blue digital camera. "Smile!"

Lavi threw his arm around Allen's shoulders and flashed a smile. Allen grinned as well, leaning into the one-armed embrace. Kanda glowered, which, frankly, was to be expected.

The bright flash blinded them for a moment, and then the three of them hopped down off of the statue and clambered back over the fence.

"Well, I think that was a pretty successful first mission," Lenalee said, turning off the camera to save its batteries. "Where to next?"

Kanda pulled the folded-up list out of his pocket and shook it open with more force than was strictly necessary. "The stupid beansprout and I thought that we could gather a bunch of these smaller items in a short amount of time, and then go to some of the bigger things later."

"My _name_ is _Allen_," said beansprout huffed, kicking a rock at Kanda's calf as they trudged back up the path toward the parking lot.

Kanda whirled around, glaring. "You did _not_ just kick that shit at me," he snarled, pointing at the rock, which was now lying innocently in the middle of the path.

"Oh, I believe I did," Allen said, smirking.

"That's it, you're dead," the Japanese boy said, starting toward him with murderous intent.

"Now just a second, Yu," Lavi said, stepping in between them in order to fulfill his knightly duties as protector of the admittedly not-completely-innocent boy.

Allen took this opportunity to spin on his heel and flee like a coward.

"Get back here," Kanda demanded, sprinting after him.

Lavi hung his head and sighed. "This isn't going well."

Lenalee laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "The night is still young, my friend."

* * *

I'll do my best to get the next chapter out as quickly as possible, I promise! Drop me a review to let me know what you guys think so far!


	3. The End of the Hunt

So yeah. Hi.

I know that this chapter is ridiculously late. I feel soooooo bad about it, you guys. You don't even know. You're all such fabulous reviwers, and then I go and pull something like this. It is getting near the end of the school year, and I have a crap ton of homework and all, but this shit is just unforgiveable. So I'm sorry.

I really want to thank everyone who has reviwed the story so far. You all are wonderful. I've never gotten such positive reviews. Please, keep it up and let me know how I'm doing.

SO! Without further ado, here is chapter three! I finally remembered that I'm trying to have some sort of plot and whatnot, so there's some pretty blatant foreshadowing ahead. Yay!

Disclaimer: I do not own D Gray-man

* * *

Captain's Log—8:35 pm. Commence "Operation: Annoy the Neighbors"

"This is a terrible idea," Allen said, rubbing his arm nervously.

"What? This idea is pure genius!" Lavi insisted. He should know; he thought of it. And everyone knows that everything Lavi thinks of is bound to be pure genius. Because the redhead is, in fact, a genius.

Sometimes, Lavi even managed to astound _himself_ with his infallible logic.

"I thought we were going to go with the route that _Kanda_ and I decided upon," Allen countered, spitting out the long-haired boy's name and grimacing as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

"That was before the two of you decided to act like five-year-olds and chase each other around that park for an hour," Lenalee interjected from the driver's seat.

"He kicked a rock at me," Kanda grunted, sounding exactly like the five-year-old Lenalee was accusing him of being. He rubbed the spot on his head where Lenalee kicked him when she decided she'd finally had enough of his nonsense.

"You deserved it," Allen replied, sticking out his tongue.

This was probably the most annoyed Kanda had been since that time Daisya got smashed at last year's Jersey Shore party and decided to superglue pink and green sequins to Mugen's sheath. The poor soccer player ended up in the hospital for that one. Lavi sent flowers and a balloon that read "Happy Bar Mitzvah!" because that shit was _hilarious_.

Daisya was not amused.

"Anywhoozle," Lavi said, grinning. "We're going to do this because it is clearly an awesome plan and Lena agrees with me and I bet you would too if you just stopped scowling at each other for, like, two seconds and really, you guys just need to chill, 'cause I got this shit under total control."

"That was a ridiculously long run-on sentence, Lavi," Allen said, raising an eyebrow. "Even for you. I'm amazed you got all of that out in one breath, really."

"Dude," Lavi said, offended. "It so wasn't. You wanna hear a real run-on sentence?"

"No," Kanda said immediately. "If you even think about it, I will kill you where you stand."

"But I'm sitting right now, Yu," Lavi replied, snickering because Kanda clearly did not understand how logic worked.

Kanda just growled and looked away. Lavi assumed that this was his way of saying "of course, Lavi. I am but a lowly imbecile and bow to your infinite wisdom" or something similar.

Lenalee pulled up in front of Allen's house and Lavi was out of the Jeep before she'd even taken the keys out of the ignition.

"He's going to be so mad," Allen whined, sliding out of the back seat and trudging after him.

"I'm staying in the car," Kanda growled. Lenalee pouted at him and Kanda gritted his teeth for a moment before unbuckling his seatbelt and kicking open the door. "Fine, fine," he finally muttered.

The four of them gathered on the front step. Lavi giggled a little to himself as he rang the doorbell.

When the door finally swung open, George stood on the threshold. His politely curious expression quickly morphed into one of angry disgust. "What do you hooligans want?" he demanded.

"Girl scouts!" Lavi said brightly. "Would you like to buy some cookies to support our troop, sir?"

"Lavi…" Lenalee groaned. But she covered her mouth a second too late to hide her grin from the green-eyed boy's observant gaze.

"Did you all come over here just to mock me? Is that it?" George looked highly unimpressed at this.

"No, of course not, sir," Allen said, smiling winningly. His ability to pull out the 'properly polite gentleman' act at the drop of a hat was as impressive as it was adorably amusing, Lavi decided.

"Then what do you want? Are you here to apologize for allowing your snow to pile up in such unsightly heaps?" George asked, pointing at Allen's yard. Two sad little piles sat at the edge of the sidewalk, covered in the sand the city scattered on the roads after particularly heavy snowfalls. "Because if that's the case, I will only accept your apology in writing, as I've stated in my numerous letters to you."

"Letters?" Allen repeated, baffled. The group looked across the street at the younger boy's house and noticed that the metal mailbox, which hung a bit crookedly next to his front door, was stuffed with so many little white envelopes that the lid didn't even close properly anymore.

"That's a lot of mail," Lenalee commented.

Allen rounded on the redhead. "Lavi!" he barked. "Did I _not_ ask you to collect my mail for me while I was gone?"

Lavi froze, wide-eyed. Now that he thought about it, Allen totally _had _asked him to do that. Apparently, he failed that mission. This was unprecedented, of course, because Lavi _never_ failed missions. Especially not ones tasked to him by certain lovable bean sprouts. A calm, rational explanation was clearly in order.

Unfortunately, while Lavi was perfectly capable of being rational, he was never very good at being at being calm.

"But neighbor!" he wailed, throwing his arms around Allen dramatically. "I was just so distraught when you left that I was all 'oh no, I won't get to see my cute little buddy for almost a whole month!' but you were all 'blah blah blah, here's some boring stuff I'm going to talk about now, blah blah blah, responsibility, blah blah blah.' And I was all, 'dude, I'm not going to listen to this. I need to focus all of my attention on my heart-wrenching display of totally called-for and not at all melodramatic sobbing.' I was worried about my _feelings_, not shit like getting your mail or watering your plants, which I just now remembered you also asked me to do."

"You killed my plants?" Allen shrieked.

"That's not important right now," Lavi said, clinging tighter to the smaller boy and burying his nose in his soft white hair. "What's important is that I _missed you._"

From somewhere behind his left shoulder, Lavi heard Kanda sigh. It was less of an "aww, what a heartwarming scene" kind of sigh and more of a "you two are morons and I'm going to kill you now" kind of sigh.

This did not bode well.

"What are you doing?" George demanded. "And why is this disturbing display occurring on my front step?"

Oh yeah. George. In all of this excitement, Lavi almost forgot why they were even there.

"Mr. George," Allen said, forcefully extricating himself from Lavi's loving hug and pasting on a smile. "The reason we're actually here is that we're doing a scavenger hunt and would like to ask you if you'd be willing to lend us anything you might have that is on this list." He pulled the list out of his pocket and held it out to him.

George took the time to carefully gaze at each of their hopeful faces (well, Kanda's face wasn't as hopeful as it was annoyed, but whatever) before he took a step backward and slammed the door in their faces.

"Hmm," Lavi said, as Allen let his arm drop dejectedly. "That actually went a lot better than I expected."

Lenalee suddenly let loose such a violet burst of laughter that Lavi figured she'd held it in throughout the entire exchange.

"That was so worth it," she said breathlessly when she'd finally calmed a bit. "Just to see his face when you started hugging Allen and rambling about that stuff… ah…" she smiled at Lavi and gave him a thumbs-up. "Well played, sir. Well played."

"Thank you," Lavi said, giving a bow.

Allen whacked him on the head. "I still cannot believe you killed my plants."

"Accident, babe! It was not done with malicious intent, I swear!"

"That was a giant waste of time," Kanda broke in. "If we'd gone with my plan we'd have a ton of points by now. I want to win, dammit."

"And we will, Yu. Don't you worry," Lavi said, patting him on the back.

"Don't touch me," Kanda said. "Now get your ass in the car. We're going to do things my way now."

"Are you giving orders to the Captain?" Lavi demanded, affronted. "No one gives orders to the Captain!"

"You are not a Captain," Allen said shortly, brushing past him. He was probably still upset over the untimely demise of his plants, Lavi reasoned.

_Note to self, _Lavi thought as he sauntered toward the Jeep. _Buy Allen new plants. Fake ones, though. Real ones are clearly overrated._

* * *

Captain's Log—11:42 pm. "Operation: Clock Tower"

After a few surprisingly productive hours of collecting items from the list—in which they only had to pull over once to physically separate Allen and Kanda, who'd gotten into a fistfight in the back seat over whether it was worth it to take the time to try to find a My Little Pony figurine (45 points)—the four of them gathered around the granite clock tower that stood in the middle of campus. The clock tower was rather famous with the students of Black Order University. Not only did it play the school song every hour on the hour, but there was a ridiculous urban legend connected to it as well. According to school lore, if a couple shared a kiss at the base of the tower, they were destined to stay together forever and live happily ever after.

This legend was a horrible let-down for Lavi when he heard it as a freshman. When he first caught wind that there was an urban legend connected with the campus, he assumed that some sort of bizarrely elaborate murder had taken place beneath the clock's softly glowing face. Or that some sort of tragic accident had occurred and the center of campus was now haunted by the restless, blank-eyed ghost of the student who'd been the hapless victim. Something interesting that could be the plot of one of the _Lifetime_ channel's more unorthodox Original Movies.

Not that Lavi watched _Lifetime_ or anything.

But alas! The real legend was ridiculously sappy, as well as dreadfully inaccurate. Lavi knew this first-hand, as he'd made out with seven or eight girls at that tower (they were convinced it was _romantic_, while Lavi was just looking for a way to cure his boredom at the time) yet he'd broken up with them shortly thereafter and never spoke to them again. Which, now that he thought about it, was kind of a dick move on his part.

He cast a sideways glance at Allen as the younger boy milled about, kicking pieces of wood-mulch back into a flowerbed. Allen was still a bit snappish over the unfortunate loss of his plants. Lavi said he was sorry again and again, but the boy refused to accept his apology. When Lavi asked why, Allen just shook his head and huffed that Lavi "just didn't understand."

Whatever _that_ meant.

"I thought you said everyone else would be here," Lenalee said, sidling up to him and pulling her coat tighter to her body in the cold.

"I thought they would be," Lavi said, scratching the back of his head. One of the items on the scavenger hunt list was a photo of the clock tower at exactly midnight. It was worth six-hundred points and was one of the most valuable on the entire list. He sort of figured everyone else would show up to take advantage of the point-value.

"Well, well, well," an obnoxious voice said, accompanied by the jingling of bells. Lavi whirled around and saw Daisya Barry—in his _ridiculous _jester hat…seriously, who told him wearing that thing was a good idea?—and his team step into the circle of light provided by the clock's lighted face. "Thought we might see you here, Bookman."

"There they are," Lavi said to Lenalee, pointing at the group.

"Yes, thank you Lavi, I can see them," she replied, rolling her eyes. She waved at Miranda, who gave a tremulous smile and waved back.

"No fraternizing with the enemy," Daisya barked, and Miranda recoiled as though struck. Marie frowned at him, probably for yelling at the clearly emotionally fragile girl, and cuffed him on the back of the head. Krory shifted awkwardly and tried to remain out of sight.

"Damn, they beat us here," Fou muttered as she stalked into their midst, followed by her team. The two boys (what were their names again?) were bent over the list in serious discussion. The girl Allen called "Miss Lo Fa"—Allen called all women except Lenalee "miss," which was equal parts adorable and hilarious—immediately began looking around frantically. When she finally caught sight of Allen, who was lurking just beyond the circle of light near the student announcement board, she blushed such a brilliant crimson that Lavi could see it in the dark.

"How many points you got, Bookman?" Daisya said, stepping up to the redhead confrontationally.

"Uh," Lavi said, taking a step back.

"More than you've got, asshole," Kanda said from where he was leaning against the side of the tower.

"What?" Daisya said, whirling. "Wanna bet?"

Lavi took this opportunity to slip away from the group unnoticed. He needed to talk to his boyfriend. Allen hadn't spoken to him much since George's house, and had instead fully invested himself in planning their strategy with Kanda. The two of them actually managed to remain pretty civil with each other (save the "My Little Pony incident," as it came to be known) and while the Lavi was happy that his ultimate plan was working, he did not enjoy the fact that Allen was only getting along with Kanda because he needed something to do to avoid speaking with him.

He wandered over to Allen, who stood in front of the giant corkboard on which people could pin information and advertisements. The white-haired boy pretended to be very interested in a flyer for the University's French Club, even though Lavi knew for a fact that Allen didn't speak a word of the language.

"Hey," he said.

So his greeting wasn't very inspired. Sometimes, simpler is better, right?

"What?" Allen said shortly.

Or maybe not…

"Are you still mad?" Lavi asked quietly.

"What do you think?" Allen said, refusing to look at him.

"Aww, come on, dude!" Lavi said, putting a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder. Allen shook it off and Lavi frowned. "This can't just be about plants and mail, am I right?"

"I can't believe it took you this long to figure it out," Allen said, snorting. "Oh wait, yes I can."

Ouch. Okay, maybe he deserved that.

But what could Allen still hold a grudge about? Lavi was a genius, so figuring this shit out _should_ be a cinch. However, things with Allen always ended up being far more complicated than they should be. Lavi still remembered the whole post-Halloween debacle they'd both lived through and how Allen decided to avoid him without explaining _why_. That whole situation was messed up and awful; Lavi didn't think he'd ever felt so hurt in his entire life.

From that experience, Lavi learned that Allen liked to be passive aggressive and cryptic. He dropped vague hints here and there, and Lavi was left to put the pieces together to figure out what was wrong. And he hated puzzles.

Oh man, puzzles were so stupid. Who wants to spend fourteen hours fitting together ten thousand little pieces of cardboard just to get a poorly drawn picture of a fish or some shit like that? That was not Lavi's idea of a good time. Moral of the story: puzzles were not fun. Puzzles were, like, anti-fun.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Allen said crossly.

Lavi gave a start, shaking his head to clear it. He was still trying to figure out what Allen's problem was. He actually hadn't gotten very far in his analysis before he got distracted by his mental tangent about puzzles. Regrettably, this sort of thing happened to him often.

"Um," Lavi said, just to buy himself some time. He thought hard, mentally sifting through all of the information he had on Allen that could potentially be relevant. If most other people tried to do this their brains would explode, but Lavi's brain was tough and manly and sexy (brains can be sexy, right?) and could therefore totally handle it. What did Allen think was important? What was the one thing Allen prided himself on above all others?

"Cooking!" Lavi blurted.

"What?" Allen said, frowning.

Oh, shit, that wasn't the right word. "Responsibility," Lavi amended. "Responsibility, right? That's why you're mad. Because you asked me to take care of something for you and I didn't. I shirked my responsibility. Right?"

"Right," Allen said softly.

Lavi bit his lip. He'd been told his entire life that he was horribly irresponsible—usually by his grandfather right before the old man kicked him into the nearest hard surface. He never really thought much about it, though, because he'd also been told that his carefree attitude toward rules and obligations added to his charm—usually by some breathless girl right before he dragged her into some situation of questionable legality.

But he was with Allen now. And if responsibility was a quality that was important to the gray-eyed boy, then Lavi would just have to be more responsible from now on.

He grinned and pulled Allen into a hug. "I'm sorry," he whispered in his ear.

Allen wrapped his arms around Lavi and hugged back. "I forgive you."

Lavi whooped and pumped a fist in the air. "Yes! I am _awesome_!"

"But!" Allen said, holding up a warning finger and dampening the redhead's spirits a little. "You have to promise me you'll work on being more responsible, okay?"

"I promise," Lavi said sincerely.

"Great!" Allen said, giving him a brilliant grin.

Lavi melted a little inside at that, pleased that their first major spat as a couple was resolved quickly and peaceably. "Come on, we should get back to the team," he said, looping his arm with Allen's.

"Hang on," Allen said, turning back to the announcement board. "Do you know what this is all about?" he asked, indicating a bright-pink flyer that was tacked to the very center of the board.

"Huh?" Lavi asked, leaning closer in order to read it in the dim light. "Emergency meeting of the LBFC," he read aloud. "This Sunday at eight o'clock in room 123 of the student union. Hey, that's tomorrow!"

"What's the LBFC?" Allen wondered.

"Dunno," Lavi said, scrutinizing the flyer again. In the bottom left corner were the letters "AW," surrounded by a red circle with a line drawn through them—the international sign for "no." The whole thing was surrounded by a disturbing skull-and-crossbones motif.

"Must be important," Allen said. "Look."

Lavi looked around, following Allen's pointing finger. Now that he was looking for them, he realized that the pink flyers were everywhere. They were taped to light poles, stapled to trees, even attached to wooden stakes that were driven into the ground next to the sidewalks.

"Weird," Lavi said. Then he shrugged. "Not really our problem, though, is it?"

"I suppose not," Allen said, seemingly unconvinced.

"Probably something boring," Lavi said, grabbing Allen's hand again. "Let's go! It's almost time to take the picture."

"Right," Allen said. He started to turn, but at the last minute he reached out and tugged the pink flyer off of the bulletin board. It tore a bit at the top as it broke free of the tack holding it in place. Allen folded it into fourths and stuck it in his back pocket. Lavi raised an eyebrow and the white-haired boy shrugged. "You never know."

"Fair enough," Lavi said. "Come on, come on!" He tugged Allen along behind him.

"You really need to stop dragging me everywhere, Lavi," Allen said. But he didn't twist out of Lavi's grip.

"The hell took you idiots so long?" Kanda grumped when they returned to the group. Daisya was sitting on a bench, rubbing his chest with a pained expression. Lavi raised an eyebrow and Lenalee gave an exasperated sigh.

"Kanda punched him," she said, crossing her arms.

"Again?" Allen said.

"He deserved it," Kanda said matter-of-factly. "He stepped to me. You don't step to me if you can't handle it."

"Oh, Yu, you're so manly," Lavi simpered, pretending to swoon.

"I will kill you," Kanda said calmly.

"Kid's got a pretty impressive right hook," Fou said, nodding appreciatively. The tall boy behind her (seriously, what the _hell_ was his name?) snickered and the shorter one rolled his eyes. Lo Fa's eyes lit up when she saw Allen and was at his side so quickly it was like she teleported there.

The clock tower chose that moment to chime, proclaiming to the world that it was midnight and nearly scaring the life out Lavi.

"Oooh, quick!" Lenalee squealed, holding up her camera. Lavi dragged Allen over to where Kanda was once again leaning against the side of the tower and flashed a smile. Lenalee snapped the picture just in time. Not a second later Daisya's team shouldered them out of the way in order to take their own picture. They had a brief war with Fou's team that ended with both teams ending up in both pictures.

"All right!" Daisya crowed. "Let's move out, team!" He held up a fist and ran off without saying goodbye, his stupid hat jingling stupidly.

"We'd better be off, too," Fou said, snatching the list from one of the boys' hands and scrutinizing it. "Seeya, Lenalee," she called, not looking up as she hurried away. Her team followed.

"Bye Fou!" Lenalee called. "We'd better go too. I was secretly listening in on Daisya's team's discussion, and I think that they have almost as many points as we do. We should go get some more stuff."

"I refuse to lose to Barry," Kanda snarled, striding toward the lot where they'd parked the Jeep. "Let's go."

"We probably _should_ try to win," Lenalee said, giving Lavi a Look. "As we don't really have anything to give the other teams for a prize if they _do_ win."

"Right, right," Lavi said. Lenalee trotted after Kanda and the redhead made to follow, but Allen grabbed his hand and held him back.

"What's up?" Lavi asked, looking down at him in confusion.

"Well," Allen said, ducking his head. "I don't know if you know about the urban legend surrounding the clock tower, but I thought that…you know…" he trailed off shyly.

Well, if that wasn't the cutest thing in the history of _ever_. Lavi grinned brightly and dragged Allen right to the foot of the tower. He cupped the smaller boy's face in his hands and kissed him gently. Allen shuddered a bit and sighed, which made Lavi chuckle.

"Shut up," Allen whined, whacking him on the shoulder.

"Sorry, sprout. You're just so cute!"

"My name is Allen!" But the proclamation lacked its usual vehemence. Lavi kissed him again and Allen wrapped his arms around the taller boy's neck.

When they broke apart, Allen buried his face in Lavi's chest and sighed again. Lavi smiled and raised his head, catching sight of Lo Fa, who was standing stock-still on the sidewalk and staring at them with her hand over her mouth. He was unsure what she was doing there, because he was certain her team had already left. Perhaps she stayed to say goodbye to Allen? And although he'd previously found her obvious crush on his boyfriend to be amusing in its futility, Lavi felt a surge of sympathy rise in his chest at the devastated expression on her face. When he caught her eye, she turned and walked away quickly. She was almost completely out of sight when she stopped, read one of the pink flyers taped to a light-post, and then pulled it down and took it with her.

Lavi wondered at that. What about that information could have Lo Fa so interested? Perhaps this "LBFC" required further investigation…

"We should probably go," Allen said, pulling away and grinning up at him. He was completely ignorant of the Lo Fa incident, and Lavi couldn't bring himself to mention it. Allen would feel terrible, and Lavi didn't want that. For now, he'd keep it to himself.

"Yeah, Kanda will be pissed if we don't hurry," Lavi said, forcing his usual cheer into his voice. If Allen noticed that his tone was falsely bright, he didn't mention it.

* * *

Captain's Log—5:27 am. At this point, the Captain is far too tired to think of a clever codename for this particular mission.

"Coffee!" Lavi moaned, shuffling into the all-night diner like some sort of caffeine-addicted zombie. The other three members of his team slouched in after him. They threw themselves into a booth and Lenalee immediately let her head sink onto the tabletop.

A waitress bustled over, sporting a sympathetic smile. "A bit tired, are we?"

"Nothing a large cup of coffee can't handle," Lavi said, yawning. Allen's head slumped onto his shoulder and the redhead blinked owlishly. "Maybe you should just bring us a whole pot."

"Will do," the waitress said. She poked Lenalee's shoulder with her pencil, frowning in concern. "Is she going to be all right?"

"'m 'kay," Lenalee mumbled without raising her head, her voice muffled by the Formica pressed to her lips.

"Don't forget the cream," Lavi reminded the waitress as she walked toward the kitchen.

"Che," Kanda scoffed, trying to subtly rub his clearly tired eyes. "You're all weak. You can't even stay awake? Pathetic."

"You're tired too, Kanda," Lenalee grumbled, tilting her head to the side to glare at him.

"Whoever thought that an all-night scavenger hunt was a good idea is a moron," Allen said sleepily, still leaning against Lavi's shoulder.

"Hey!" Lavi said, affronted.

"The rabbit _is_ a moron," Kanda agreed, nodding.

"Mmmhmm," Allen breathed.

Hold up. _Agreed_? Allen and Kanda were actually…agreeing on something? Lavi took a moment to be thrilled, even though technically what they were agreeing on was an insult to his (considerable) intelligence and he should be offended. He let it slide, instead looking excitedly at Lenalee as if to say "see? Told you it would work!"

Lenalee, however, was fast asleep where she sat and had missed the entire exchange.

Lavi sighed and leaned his chin in his hand. This coffee outing was a much-needed break. The past few hours were spent driving all over town, trying to track down some of the more elusive items on the list. They were rather successful, actually, and the back of Allen's Jeep was so full of random junk the white-haired boy said he was afraid someone would see it and call one of those _Hoarding_ shows to come clean it out.

"Here you are," the waitress said, setting down a silver coffee pot and a carafe of cream. "And here, you poor dears," she added, placing an entire apple pie in the middle of the table. "On the house."

"Thank you very much," Lavi said, flashing his signature grin and reaching for the pot. He filled his white china mug and added a generous dose of cream.

"Food?" Allen said hopefully, lifting his head off of Lavi's shoulder to pull the pie tin toward him.

"Hey," Kanda growled, grabbing the other edge of the tin. "Don't go hogging this whole thing to yourself, beansprout."

"My _name_ is _Allen_," Allen spat, more awake now that he was in an epic battle for control of the pie.

"No one _cares_," Kanda said, giving the tin a vicious tug. "Give me the pie."

"Never!" Allen hissed, tugging himself.

"Uh, guys…" Lavi said, watching as the tin bent out of shape and caused the pie-filling within to slowly seep out of the crust and onto the table.

"You're wrecking it!" Allen accused.

"_I'm_ wrecking it?" Kanda repeated incredulously. "You're the one who's squishing it!"

"Whass happen?" Lenalee hummed, lifting her head to stare with confused eyes at the pie war going on in front of her. "Who ordered pie?"

"No one," Lavi said, pouring her a cup of coffee. "The nice waitress gave it to us for free. But at this rate, I don't think any of us are actually going to get to eat any of it." He passed her the mug, which she took with a murmur of thanks.

"Did you hear that, jerk?" Allen said, glaring. "Lavi and Lenalee want some pie, too. So stop _wrecking it_."

"A likely story," Kanda sniffed. "You just want to eat it all yourself, you bottomless pit."

"This is kind of hilarious," Lenalee said, grinning at Lavi over the rim of her mug.

Lavi had to agree. As much as he wanted them to get along, he had to admit that he got an enormous kick out of watching them argue. He wished he was more awake so he could fully enjoy it.

"Give it to me!" Kanda demanded.

"Fine!" Allen snapped, letting go of the tin just as Kanda gave a vicious yank. It flew into Kanda's face and slid off slowly, like some sort of bizarre comedy routine from an old _Three Stooges_ movie. Kanda sat stiffly, marinated in apple pie and rage.

"Oh shit," Lavi said quietly. Lenalee smacked her hand over her mouth to try to stifle her giggles, but it was too late.

"_Beansprout!_" Kanda bellowed. Allen sat up straight, completely awake, and bolted out of the booth and through the door. Kanda scrambled over Lenalee, who was incapacitated with mirth, and charged after him.

"Ooh, well, I'm certainly awake now!" Lenalee said, breathless from laughter.

"My plan isn't going to work, is it?" Lavi said, feeling very defeated. He looked dejectedly out the window and watched the furious Japanese boy chase Allen all over the parking lot.

"What was your fist clue?" Lenalee said, giving his arm a friendly pat.

Lavi hung his head and sighed.

* * *

Captain's Log—3:39 pm. "Operation: Sleepytime."

They were _done_.

There were still a few hours left in the scavenger hunt, but Lavi's team decided that they'd just make do with the items they'd collected. They were having a difficult time caring about _anything_ at this point, much less winning this arbitrary contest.

When the team trooped back into the house, they all pretty much fell asleep where they dropped. Kanda managed to make it into his own bedroom, slamming the door behind him, but the rest of the team decided that the living room was looking pretty damn comfortable. Lavi and Allen curled up on the couch while Lenalee just flopped onto the floor.

Lavi wasn't sure how long he slept, but he awoke to the sound of hushed voices. He kept his eyes closed and breathed evenly, pretending to be asleep so he could eavesdrop like the sneaky ninja he was.

"—the reason for all of this, right?" a voice was murmuring close to his ear. That must be Allen.

"Che." Kanda. What was he doing in the living room?

"I mean, you know why he put us both in the backseat and tried to get us to work together, don't you?"

"Do I care?"

Allen made an impatient noise in his throat, and Lavi felt the vibration on his cheek where he was leaning against the smaller boy. "He wants us to get along, of course."

Lavi's breathing hitched a bit at that. So Allen had figured out his masterful plan? And here he thought he was being discreet. Aww, his BF was so smart!

Of course, Lavi was never very good at being discreet. That was another thing he'd have to work on, he decided. Responsibility and discretion. Ugh, that sounded like way too much work.

"Why should I care what that dumbass wants?"

Oh yeah, he was eavesdropping. He almost forgot about that. This seemed like a very serious conversation, too. And even though Kanda's words indicated that he was apathetic, Lavi knew the long-haired boy well enough to recognize the tone that said he really did care. If only a little.

"I just think that we should, you know. Try." Allen said this last word as though it physically pained him. "For Lavi's sake."

Lavi wanted to sit up and hug the younger boy for all he was worth, but he figured that both of them would be annoyed he'd been pretending to sleep. And he did not feel like getting smacked right then.

"Che." Kanda said. But Lavi thought he heard a note of grudging agreement in his voice.

"Thanks, Kanda," Allen said softly.

"I'm going to go get my soba now," Kanda said, in what was probably his attempt at a non-hostile tone.

Of course. Only Kanda would forego sleep in favor of soba.

"All right," Allen said, and Lavi could hear the grin in his voice. The white-haired boy snuggled back down onto his shoulder and Lavi felt himself begin to tear up. Then he remembered that he was far too manly to cry and settled for a triumphant smirk before drifting back to sleep.

He was shocked awake by the front door banging open at 6:23. He toppled off the couch, pulling Allen down with him.

"Ready to lose, Bookman?" Daisya Barry crowed, bounding into the house. "Our team didn't sleep _at all_, so we had way more time to collect shit than you losers. Helps that Krory's a vampire. They don't need to sleep."

"I'm not a vampire," Krory said, as though he'd repeatedly established this fact and was getting tired of repeating himself.

"You keep tellin' yourself that, Dracula," Daisya said, waving a hand.

Krory's shoulders slumped and Marie gave him a comforting pat on the back. Only then did Lavi notice Miranda standing at the back of the group. There were bags under her eyes and she was shaking slightly, clearly sleep deprived. She looked positively deranged.

"Is Fou's group back yet?" Lenalee asked, sitting up from where she'd been sprawled on the rug and rubbing her eyes.

"They forfeited," Daisya said, smiling smugly. "Apparently one of their team members had a nervous breakdown and had to go home."

"What?" Allen said, frowning in concern. "Who was it?"

"The girl with the glasses. Fafa or whatever."

Lavi tugged guiltily at his collar, but luckily Allen didn't notice. "Miss Lo Fa? Goodness, I do hope she's all right."

"Eh, less competition for me," Daisya said, shrugging. The rest of his team looked disgruntled at his use of 'me' instead of 'us.' "Not that I'm worried or anything. You guys're going _down_."

"We'll see about that," Kanda said, stalking into the room from wherever it was he'd been lurking. "Beanspr—er… yeah," he said, wrinkling his nose.

"Yes, Kanda?" Allen said, smiling beatifically.

"Help me get the stuff out of the car."

"I'll help too!" Lavi exclaimed, jumping up with a wide smile. He pretended not to notice Kanda's attempt not to use the hated "beansprout" moniker, but Lenalee stared at him in blatant amazement.

When both remaining teams had all of their items laid out in the living room, Lavi and Lenalee, with some help from Marie and Krory, added up both teams' total points. Daisya bounced on his heels in impatience while Miranda passed out on the loveseat. Kanda leaned against the wall, acting coolly disinterested. No one was fooled.

When all the points were totaled, Lavi and Lenalee shared a worried glance.

"What?" Allen said.

"Well…" Lavi started.

"It would seem our team is the victor," Marie said in his deep voice.

"Ha!" Daisya said, pointing a taunting finger in Kanda's face. "We won, douche! Suck on that!"

"What? No way," Kanda said, storming over to the tally sheets to check the numbers himself.

"Sorry Kanda," Lenalee said sheepishly. "They've got us by thirty points."

"I _knew_ we should have stopped for that My Little Pony figure," Allen sighed, shaking his head.

"What?" Kanda demanded, rounding on him. "You saying this is somehow my fault, beansprout?"

"Wha—? No, I…" Allen spluttered.

Kanda cracked his knuckles. "If _you_ hadn't wasted our time doing whatever stupid shit it was you wanted to do, we could have collected more stuff!"

"What?" Allen said, perplexed. "What did I do?"

"You know what you did," Kanda said threateningly. "It's _your_ fault we lost."

"Now hold on a minute, Yu," Lavi said, trying to step in between them.

"I hardly think it's fair that you're blaming this on me," Allen said hotly. "Especially when it was most likely _your_ fault!"

"Um, guys," Lenalee said weakly. In the background, Daisya Barry was roaring with laughter.

"Come over here and say that, beansprout," Kanda said, taking an ominous step forward.

"No, wait, we shouldn't be fighting," Allen said, shooting a furtive glance at Lavi. "Remember what we, er, talked about? Our agreement?"

"Screw that!" Kanda said. "It's your fault we lost. And now I have to kick your ass."

"I think he's upset we didn't win and needs to vent his anger," Lenalee stage-whispered.

"On _me_?" Allen whined, edging away from him.

This was clearly the wrong thing to do.

With a frankly terrifying snarl, Kanda leaped forward. Allen shrieked and fled, shooting out the kitchen door and presumably running back to his own house. Kanda followed in hot pursuit.

Lavi laced his fingers together and rested his chin on top of them. "Well, 'Operation: Allen/Kanda Friendship' is clearly a failure. Next steps, Lieutenant Lee?" he asked, leveling Lenalee with a serious look.

She shrugged.

"My sentiments exactly," Lavi said, leaning against the back of the couch with a defeated sigh.

The jingling of bells announced the arrival of Daisya Barry. Lavi cracked his eye open and looked up at him blearily.

"So, what do we win?"

* * *

Reviews, yes? Oh, and also, I just have a tiny little request. If you don't feel like it, that's totally cool, but I'd just like to ask those of you who favorite/alert this story to also drop me a little review to let me know why you like it. Sound cool?

Oh, and also! I'm going to London this summer! I'll be there for about a month. Yeah, its gonna be so rad. So if any of you amazing readers are Londoners (Londonites? Londonians?) and have any ideas about cool places for me to visit and be an annoying tourist, let me know!


	4. Nearly Witches

Why yes, I am alive. Thank you for asking.

This is a really short chapter compared to the last one, but I've stopped at a really natural place and if I tried to make it longer it would take me another 6 months to get out (probably). I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to write this. Life happens, time for fic writing is cut short, and it is very tragic indeed. But lately I've had a burst of inspiration for this fic, and I've had a lot of really nice reviews/PMs asking for updates, so I should hopefully get the next chapter out soonish.

Also, this fic seems to have devolved into madness. Sorry about that.

* * *

"Allen!" Lavi shouted, bounding through his boyfriend's front door in a panic. He swept into the living room and looked around wildly. "Where are ya, neighbor?"

Allen shifted slightly from his spot on the couch, turning to face Lavi and opening a bleary eye. "What do you want?" he said crossly. "I'm trying to sleep here."

"I can't find my wallet!" Lavi wailed. "I was going to order a pizza—"

"What? Pizza?" Allen said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "Just go to sleep already, Lavi. Aren't you tired? We were up practically all night!"

"But I'm hungry," Lavi said pitifully. "And we're out of food again."

This wasn't technically true, of course. There was plenty of food in their kitchen; in fact, the refrigerator was so stuffed that things tumbled out of it every time Lavi opened the door. But this did not mean that the food in the fridge was anything he was particularly interested in eating. Lenalee returned from winter break proclaiming that she was vegan now, ranting about cholesterol and dairy products and the unethical treatment of chickens. When Lavi voiced his disbelief, she shoved some book on animal cruelty in his face and told him he needed to be more socially aware. At this point he decided to give up, because no one wins arguments with Lenalee.

So now his fridge was full of tofu and soy milk and arugula and other stuff he'd never even heard of and _certainly_ didn't want to eat. He was beginning to fear that he'd starve to death, really.

The white-haired boy sighed. "So, what? Are you accusing me of stealing your wallet?"

"Of course not, dude!" Lavi said, pouting.

"Then you want me to give you some of my money?"

"Again—no. Just let me freaking tell you and stop trying to guess already!"

Now it was Allen's turn to pout. "Fine."

"So, I think it must have fallen out of my pocket while we were in your car during the scavenger hunt. Can I have your keys to unlock it so I can go check?" Lavi smiled hopefully.

"Oh, sure," Allen said, his own lips twitching into a smile. "I think they're still in my pocket. Hold on a second." He stood up and began digging in his pants pockets with a look of concentration on his face. Then he frowned and pulled out a pink, folded-up piece of paper. "What's this?" he wondered, staring at it in confusion.

"Um," Lavi said, raising an eyebrow.

Allen unfolded it and his eyes lit up in recognition as he read it. "Oh, it's one of the mysterious flyers from last night!"

"Oh yeah!" Lavi said, striding over to read it over Allen's shoulder.

"I really do wonder what it's for, you know?" Allen said, tapping his chin with his free hand.

"Well then, let's go!" Lavi said, snatching the flyer out of his hands and leading the way to the front door.

"Wait, what?" Allen said, trailing after him. "You can't be serious."

"I am rarely serious," Lavi said. "But I do mean it—we should totally go check this out. It's like a mystery or something! These mysterious letters are obviously code for _something_. We should do some sleuthing and figure it out! Now onward, Watson!"

"Why do I have to be Watson?" Allen asked, disgruntled. He picked up his jacket from where he'd tossed it onto the floor when he got home from the scavenger hunt and pulled it on irritably. "I want to be Holmes."

"Because, I'm clearly the hero of this story," Lavi said, leading the way out the front door and onto the sidewalk.

"No you are not!" Allen said, scampering after him.

"Dude, I so am," Lavi said, grinning. "And as the hero, I automatically get to be Holmes. It's a rule. They wrote it down somewhere, I think."

"You are so full of it," Allen said, shaking his head and abandoning the argument.

Lavi took this to be a concession of defeat and did a little victory dance as they made their way down the sidewalk. Allen eyed him warily and edged away.

"What's that look for?" Lavi demanded, pausing mid-twirl. "And where do you think you're going?"

"Away," Allen said, walking quickly and glancing suspiciously at Lavi over his shoulder. "I'm afraid I can't be seen with you if you insist on doing that."

"Oh, babe!" Lavi said, holding a hand over his heart in mock offense. "How can you be so cruel?"

"Sometimes the truth hurts," Allen said, shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness.

Clearly, Lavi decided, this dismissive attitude toward his coolness could not be abided.

So he tackled Allen into a snow bank.

* * *

"Look, we're too late!" Allen said, pointing at the closed door of room 123 in the student union. Then he pointed at the clock, which read 8:07. "Whatever this mystery thing is started seven minutes ago! These are the effects of your constant goofing around, I'll have you know."

"Don't worry about it," Lavi said, sauntering toward an unmarked door at the end of the hallway. "You liked our little snow-wrestling match—which you did _not _win, by the way, because everyone knows that hair-pulling is cheating—just as much as I did. You really should learn to admit things like this. Plus, you need to stop freaking out, because I know a secret entrance."

"Of course you do," Allen said, shaking his head fondly as he followed.

Lavi smirked and pushed the door open as silently as he could. "Room 123 is an overflow auditorium," he whispered, creeping inside and beckoning Allen forward. "It's for smaller events that don't need the huge auditorium on the third floor. It has a fewer number of seats, but it still has a stage and lights and a projector and stuff. There's a catwalk along the left-hand side of the room that janitors use for maintenance which stays pretty much shrouded in darkness even when the overhead lights are on. We can sit up there and ninja-spy on whatever these people are doing. They won't even know we're here."

Lavi began to climb the ladder that led to the aforementioned catwalk and heard Allen hum thoughtfully below him, followed shortly by a slight vibration of the rungs that indicated the white-haired boy was following him. When he reached the top, Lavi crawled slowly along the walkway and finally sat cross-legged next to a large spotlight that wasn't currently being used. A moment later, Allen settled to his right and looked inquisitively toward the stage. Luckily, the program (or whatever it was that the cryptic flyers advertised) hadn't started yet.

Though the lights were low, Lavi immediately noticed that the room was filled with girls. He thought this was a bit strange and began to entertain thoughts that this was some sort of secret society open only to women. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. The cryptic symbols and acronyms on the flyers would only be understandable to the potential initiates, and they'd have to undergo hazing and participate in ancient rituals and probably sacrifice some sort of animal to some obscure deity. Lavi became so convinced of this idea that he began to relay it to Allen, detailing the tasks he was sure the girls would have to complete.

"And then they'd have to undergo some test of courage of whatever, and then they'd accidentally kill someone and then try to cover it up. I mean, this _always_ happens. And then—"

"Or they're probably just members of one of the sororities on campus," Allen interrupted, not even looking at Lavi as he squinted through the darkness at one girl in particular. "Probably doing some sort of fund-raising meeting or something."

"Dude!" Lavi cried. "You totally wrecked by theory!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Allen said, reaching over and patting Lavi's arm distractedly.

"You ruin everything," Lavi grumbled, crossing his arms.

This of course was a preposterous thing to say, because Allen could only ever make things better, as far as Lavi was concerned.

"I try," Allen said, glancing at him briefly. Then he returned his attention to the sea of female faces, frowning in concentration. "Is that—?" he began, but was cut off by a blast of ridiculously loud pop music that had the boys scrambling to cover their ears. Below them, the girls in the auditorium did the same.

"Sorry!" a horribly familiar voice called, amplified by the microphone its owner held to her lips. "Sorry everyone!"

"Um, is that Chomesuke?" Allen murmured.

"Yes, I believe it is," Lavi replied, with a sense of growing dread.

"This is probably going to be bad, isn't it?" Allen asked, leaning close to whisper in Lavi's ear.

"Once again, yes. Yes, I believe it is."

"All right, is everyone here?" she called, prancing around the stage and holding a hand over her eyes as if shading them from a bright light as she inspected the audience. Behind her, a screen lowered and the projector hummed to life. A cheer rose up from most of those in attendance and Chomesuke giggled. "Good, good! Then, let's get started!" She held up a black remote and pressed a button, causing the screen behind her to go pink. The letters LBFC appeared behind her in a sparkling blue font. "Let the first spring semester meeting of the Lavi Bookman Fan Club commence!" She clicked the button again and a large picture of Lavi's grinning face appeared on the screen.

"What the fuck," Allen blurted, eyes wide.

Lavi would normally make a big deal about Allen using such foul language. This would cause his boyfriend to get exasperated and pout, and then Lavi would have to tickle him to get him laughing again and a great time would be had by all. Presently, he could not muster such a reaction.

"My sentiments exactly, dude," he said instead, blanching.

Now, Lavi will be the first to admit that he is a pretty awesome dude. He'll also be the first to admit that if anyone on this campus deserves a fan club, it's totally him. However, the thought of his fan club being run by his number one stalker extraordinaire was rather unsettling and could perhaps even be described as chilling. Also, he had no memory of that photo being taken, which immediately ratcheted up his paranoia levels to a new high.

"Does anyone have any new Lavi-related news to share?" Chomesuke called.

Nearly every girl in the audience glowered and raised her hand.

"Well, aside from the obvious one," Chomesuke added darkly.

As one, the girls all lowered their hands.

"He hasn't really done _anything_ interesting for an entire month!" A voice from the audience wailed.

"He _has_ become a little boring," another girl added.

"Nonsense!" Chomesuke barked, frowning. "Lavi is never boring!"

"She has a point," Lavi whispered, elbowing Allen lightly. "I am a continual source of entertainment for all."

Allen shushed him.

"We all know who is to blame for Lavi's recent change in personality," Chomesuke said solemnly. She raised the remote and clicked the button resolutely.

The photo of Lavi vanished and was replaced with a truly terrible picture of Allen. Lavi leaned back in surprise. He always thought that Allen couldn't take a bad picture. Seriously, the kid was just that photogenic. It almost seemed like the photographer of this particular shot had done everything they could to catch him at a bad angle. The Allen on the screen wasn't smiling, and he seemed to be mid-blink. Lavi had to admit that his boyfriend looked a little evil.

"Dude," Lavi breathed.

"Ugh," Allen replied. "What the hell."

"Allen Walker is the most malicious, two-faced boy to ever exist," Chomesuke spat.

Next to him, Lavi felt Allen flinch.

"He pretended to be my friend and to help me talk to Lavi, but then he stole him all for himself!"

The crowd of girls grumbled at this injustice.

"As if you're somehow incapable of making your own decisions," Allen seethed to Lavi. "That's so stupid. You can't steal _people_. Not unless they wanted to be stolen in the first place. Then it isn't thievery, it's…it's… collusion! And it isn't my fault!"

"Chill buddy," Lavi said soothingly, putting a hand on Allen's arm.

Allen slumped a little in defeat.

"But how could he have stolen Lavi away so thoroughly and completely?" Chomesuke said. It was obvious from her slightly stilted tone that she had rehearsed this speech. Either that, or she was a robot. Now that he thought about it, how was Lavi to know if she wasn't some sort of cyborg from the future who was meant to destroy him through obsessive affection? The plan made so little sense it might just work!

"Do you think Chomesuke is a Terminator?" Lavi whispered to Allen.

"Probably," Allen grumbled back.

"I freaking knew it," Lavi said triumphantly.

"That's true!" a girl he vaguely recognized called out. "Even when Lavi was dating me, he was also dating a bunch of other girls!"

Allen turned to glare at him.

"Just keeping my options open, babe," he said, chuckling weakly.

"You're awful." It seemed this whole bizarre proceeding was putting Allen in a really bad mood. Lavi needed to think of some way to cheer him up, stat!

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" Lavi whispered, wiggling his eyebrows when Allen stared at him incredulously. This was bound to work. Lavi was the most skilled joke teller on campus (or so he'd decided last year).

"Because she was obsessed with you and needed to get to this creepy meeting to talk about how much she hates me?" Allen answered darkly.

"Um." Shit. His plan was foiled. Curse Allen's impressive command of sarcasm!

"Exactly," Chomesuke said. "Since when is Lavi really exclusive with anyone? Let alone someone like _this guy_," she said, using the projector remote to click to a new picture of Allen. In this one, the camera flash gave him some serious red-eye, and his smile was bordering on eerie. Basically, he looked like a demon.

"Holy shit, you look like a demon!" Lavi exclaimed quietly.

Allen groaned.

"And you've got laser eyes!"

"Lavi," Allen said warningly.

"But dude," Lavi said, gesturing to the picture.

"I see it," Allen said, sitting forward so that his bangs fell into his eyes.

Lavi put his arm around him and Allen leaned into the embrace.

"So what could possibly be the reason for Lavi's newfound 'Love'?" She asked, putting air quotes around the word love.

"Hey!" Lavi whispered indignantly. "Don't you trivialize what Allen and I have together!"

Allen grinned into Lavi's shoulder.

"What?" The group of girls chorused. Chomesuke was, at this point, getting really geared up. She stormed back and forth across the stage, whipping herself up into a frenzy.

"That girl needs to relax," Lavi said.

"The answer, fellow LBFCers, is obvious." She slowly raised the projector remote and clicked the button. The screen went black. Then, the worst picture of Allen that Lavi had ever seen appeared. His head was slightly thrown back, his eyes were squinted, and his mouth was wide open. Clearly, he'd been caught mid-laugh, but that wasn't the strangest part of the picture.

"Oh for the love of…" Allen muttered.

A pointed black witch's hat had been photoshopped (poorly) onto the laughing Allen's head. A broomstick that was smaller than Allen's arm was cropped in next to his hand. In the background, a large black cauldron bubbled, boiling something green.

"What the hell?" Lavi said, perplexed.

"Allen Walker," Chomesuke said, pausing for dramatic effect. "Is a witch!"

There was a collective gasp from the audience.

"Damn it," Allen sighed.

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen!" A familiar voice shouted. Lavi and Allen both looked over the side of the catwalk to see Lo Fa standing up from her chair. All of the other girls in the audience looked scandalized.

"I thought that was her!" Allen said, leaning forward. "I wonder what she's doing here?"

"It so is not!" Chomesuke said, very maturely.

"It so is!" Lo Fa countered. She looked around the room in exasperation. "Allen Walker is not a witch. He's a really nice guy."

"No he isn't!" Chomsuke bellowed. "He worships the devil!"

"No he doesn't!" Lo Fa sternly replied. "Look, I came here tonight because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about this Lavi guy. He didn't seem so special to me."

Everyone in the auditorium made surprised and angry noises.

"But!" Lo Fa continued, shouting over them. "But I've realized now that if Lavi makes Allen happy, then I'm okay with that." She smiled softly at the picture of Allen on screen. Then her smile wavered and she began laughing heartily.

"What?" Chomesuke demanded.

"That's the worst photoshop job I've ever seen. You people are stupid."

"We are not stupid! We're here to protect Lavi from being bewitched and sacrificed to the devil! That's the only reason Allen wants him, you know!"

"You want to sacrifice me to the devil?" Lavi whispered. "I wish you'd told me that before. I can't be in a relationship with someone who wants to cut out my heart and offer my immortal soul to the greatest evil known to Man."

"Well, if I'd told you, you wouldn't have fallen into my trap," Allen said, in an odd voice. "Now I have you right where I want you!"

"Wh-what?" Lavi said, eyes wide.

"Mua ha ha ha!" Allen laughed, poking Lavi in the side. He shrieked, but luckily the girls in the audience had broken into pandemonium at Lo Fa's proclamation that they didn't hear it.

"You guys are horrible people," Lo Fa said, picking up her winter jacket and pulling it on. "Just leave them alone. They like each other—get over it."

"Hmm, it seems she has," Lavi murmured.

"What?" Allen wanted to know.

"Oh, nothing, bro. I'll tell you later."

"This is an outrage!" Chomesuke screeched as Lo Fa calmly made her way toward the door. "You'll pay for this."

"Get a life!" Lo Fa yelled, and she slammed the door behind her as she left.

Silence reigned for a few seconds before a girl in the audience called out, "I bet she works for Walker. You know, like, he created her out of clay and she does his bidding. I saw it on a show about witches once."

"Really?" Chomesuke said, eyes wide. "Which show was that?"

"Something on the History Channel," the girl replied. "So you know it's legit."

"History channel," Lavi growled, gritting his teeth. "Do not speak of the History channel."

Allen leaned over and rubbed his shoulder.

"So that girl was a clay monster?" Chomesuke said, intrigued.

"Sometimes they're made out of frogs," the girl pointed out helpfully.

"So she's a frog monster."

"Probably," the girl said, shrugging.

"Lo Fa is not a frog monster," Allen said hotly. "She is a very nice girl!"

"Don't doubt it for a sec, babe," Lavi said.

"So how do we defeat this frog monster?" Chomesuke wanted to know.

"She's not a frog monster!" Allen whispered.

"Fire, I think," the girl said, her brow creasing as she tried to remember.

"Holy shit, they're going to set Lo Fa on _fire?_" Lavi breathed. "These girls are hard core!"

"Or," the girl from the audience continued, "we have to destroy the source of Walker's magic power. Then all of his spells will be broken."

"Including the one on Lavi!" Chomesuke squealed, delighted. She clapped her hands, and the rest of the girls followed suit, murmuring excitedly to each other. "But where does he keep this power source? Also, what do you think it even is?"

The auditorium was silent for a moment as they thought.

"So, where is the source of your power?" Lavi demanded.

"What? I don't _have_ a source of power. I don't even have any power at all!" Allen replied, disgruntled.

"But if you did, what would it be? And where would you keep it?"

"Lavi, this is really stupid."

"Why won't you just answer the question? Unless…" Unless Allen really _was_ a witch. That opened up a whole new avenue of possibilities. Lavi could be under a spell, right now, being slowly prepared by Allen to become a human sacrifice. It all made perfect sense.

Slowly, Allen smirked.

Then the two leaned against each other and broke out in silent giggles.

"Ah, these girls are being crazy right now," Lavi said, wiping tears from his good eye.

"This is the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me. And, seeing as I hang out with you on a regular basis, that is saying a _lot_."

"I know!" Chomesuke screamed into the microphone, causing the boys to cover their ears again. "It'll be in the basement of his house. That's always where creepy things happen in houses, in the basement. I'm sure we'll find all of his witch stuff down there, including his source of power, and then we can break it and release Lavi from the spell!"

The audience cheered.

"So, tomorrow night at midnight," Chomesuke said, checking her watch. "That's when we'll strike. I'll need a small team to come with me."

"Where are we going?" a girl from the audience wanted to know.

"Into the lair of the beast itself," Chomesuke said mysteriously.

The girls, and Lavi, shivered. Allen gave him a Look.

"Sorry babe," Lavi said sheepishly. "I'm letting myself get sucked into the story."

"I've got a signup sheet here," Chomesuke said, holding up a pink piece of paper. "Anyone who is brave enough to join the mission squad, come write your names down."

"Come on, let's get out of here before we're discovered," Allen whispered, turning to crawl back along the catwalk and toward the ladder to the ground.

Lavi followed.

They sneaked out the door and made their way out of the student union without being seen.

"Wow!" Lavi shouted once they were safely on the sidewalk heading home. "That was some freaky stuff, huh?"

"Yes," Allen said, staring at the ground as he walked. "Yes, it was."

"Weird." Then, Lavi shrugged. "Oh well. Wanna order a pizza?"

"Huh?" Allen stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"So, not pizza then?"

"You did hear them, didn't you? They're planning to break into my house tomorrow night."

"Oh, yeah." Lavi turned back to look at the student union and put his hands on his hips. "You want me to tell them not to?"

"No," Allen said. He began walking again, head bowed in concentration.

"What's up, little buddy? You seem to be scheming. And as you know, I am totally awesome at scheming. This one time—"

"Let them come," Allen, who clearly had not been listening to a word Lavi said, interrupted.

"Uh, why?"

"We need to run a few errands," Allen said cryptically. "Come on, the hardware store closes soon."

"What do we need to go to the hardware store for?" Lavi demanded.

Allen stopped walking, turned, and gave him that creepy smirk again. It was kind of hot, Lavi decided. Also, it made Allen look like he was planning to kill and eat him, so Lavi was becoming increasingly concerned by his apparent attraction to potential murderers and/or cannibals. It was quite distressing.

"If they want witches," Allen said, smirking wider. "We'll give them witches."


End file.
